Bill Kirby Jr.: PWC crews ‘proud to stand ready’ in Florida

By Bill Kirby, The Fayetteville Observer

Tuesday

Sep 12, 2017 at 9:48 PMSep 12, 2017 at 9:57 PM

Hang in there, Florida.

Help is on the way.

“We are going to Fort Meade, about 35 miles below Lakeland,” Britten O’Quinn, 52, was saying Tuesday as he and Tommy Collins were leading a caravan of Fayetteville Public Works Commission vehicles down Interstate 95 south toward the Sunshine State. Hurricane Irma left 12 dead, destroyed homes, uprooted trees and 12 million residents without electricity. “As far as I can tell, it is going be flooded, with downed power lines, broken poles and a lot of wind and water damage.”

O’Quinn and Collins will know for certain when, and if, they get to Fort Meade.

Floridians who evacuated the state in anticipation of the hurricane, O’Quinn says, were heading home Tuesday, and traffic along I-95 was congested.

“I heard they reopened Key West,” O’Quinn says. “We left at 6:30 Tuesday morning, and we were running good until we got to Florence, South Carolina. We stopped and got fuel, got back on the road for about 15 minutes and then it started to bottleneck.”

Joining O’Quinn and Collins are PWC linemen Mike Baker, Tanner Collins, David Goff, Casey Hughes, Lamar Hunt, Landon Locklear, Jason McLain, Javier Martinez, Mike Nance and Bryan Owen, and they are joining thousands of other public power workers from across the United States in assisting Florida hurricane victims.

“There are 12 of us, with six on each crew,” O’Quinn was saying Tuesday around 5 p.m., when the four PWC bucket trucks, two line trucks and two pickups crossed into Georgia.

Not only are PWC lineman headed to Florida, says Carolyn Justice-Hinson, community relations officer for the city utility, but so is a contract tree-trimming crew.

“PWC has a tradition of responding in catastrophic circumstance in various places,” says Evelyn Shaw, chairwoman of the Fayetteville PWC. “They will do on-ground assessment when they arrive.”

The utility, Shaw says, is one of many throughout the country heading to Florida as members of the American Public Power Association.

“They called not only PWC, but other municipal power organizations,” Shaw says. “During Tropical Storm Matthew last year, we received aid from Wilson linemen, and we sent a crew to Robeson County to help with Matthew, too.”

When Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey in 2012, Shaw says, PWC was there.

“It’s kind of a tradition, and we are very proud to stand ready,” she says. “I can’t emphasize enough how proud citizens are of our local hometown utility PWC, and what we represent in terms of people with boots on the ground, and second to none.”

Helping out states in distress is nothing new to O’Quinn, who restored damaged power lines in New Bern, when Hurricane Bertha tore through this state in 1996. O’Quinn has been on so many hurricane and disaster sites, he can’t remember them all.

“I was in Greenville, North Carolina, about eight or nine years ago,” says O’Quinn, who on Oct. 10 will have worked 29 years for Fayetteville PWC. “And I’ve done ice storms in South Carolina.”

He has a sound idea of what Wednesday will bring.

“They have what’s called a ‘bird dog’ who knows the area,” O’Quinn says. “Usually it’s an engineer, and he’ll take you to the trouble spots. They’ll find the downed lines. And what we’ll do first is get the main feed up that goes across the city.”

That is Fort Meade, with some 3,000 residents living in southwestern Polk County.

“You get it hot,” he says. “Then we’ll do the taps.”

O’Quinn says tree crews will clear fallen trees on downed power lines either by hand or bulldozer.

“Then, we’ll go and set poles, and start pulling wire,” he says. “Sometimes, we’ll have to climb poles. We don’t know until we get down there. It’s going to be a lot of wind and flood damage. We’ll be there at least two weeks.”

Hang in there, Fort Meade.

Britten O’Quinn, Tommy Collins and our guys are there for you.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.